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2 thoughts on “This Week in the Unwritten Rules”

Hi all, I wanted an opinion that on something that happened in last nights Giants/Houston game… Tores hit a ball in the gap when I believe the giants were winning by 5 runs and turned a double into a tripple… When the giants got up Sandavol was up and got hit in the foot… Sandavol got hit because tores stretched a double into a triple with a 5 run lead? and Sandavol being a big boy went down and cried like a baby… How is that going to be seen by the league? Thanks

It’s difficult to comment on specific motivations here, be they from Torres, in hustling into an eighth-inning triple; or Astros pitcher Jeff Fulchino, in hitting Sandoval as retribution — if it wasn’t accidental, which, based on the location of the pitch, it probably was. (More on that in a moment.)

In general terms a five-run lead has a firm foothold in the gray area of when it is and isn’t proper to shut down the running game. In the bottom of the eighth inning, however, with a runner in scoring position (who ended up making it a six-run lead when he scored), against a moribund team like the Astros, in a pitcher’s park and with Brian Wilson — one of the best closers in the game — at the ready, it’s difficult to argue that Torres shouldn’t have stayed at second had he wanted to adhere to the unwritten rules. (To be fair to Torres, he was waved around second by third-base coach Tim Flannery. Watch it here.)

If a pitcher is looking to hit a batter, however, the foot is an unlikely target. All it takes is a quick hop to get out of the way, and the threat of a passed ball at that point, with a runner at third, is likely too much to stomach. Had Fulchino wanted to drill Sandoval, he probably would have aimed higher.